Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Public Service Enterprise Group Inc said its 1,174-megawatt Unit 1 at the Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey experienced an automatic reactor shutdown on Monday morning.

The plant is stable and the cause of the trip is underinvestigation, PSEG spokesman Joseph Delmar said. "A return to service is unavailable at this time."

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) spokesman, Neil Sheehan, told Reuters earlier that the unit had experienced an inadvertent safety injection (SI) and reactor trip during reactor protection system testing.

An Unusual Event, which was declared due to multiple fire alarms involving the containment building, was terminated after operators determined that there was no fire. An unusual event isthe lowest of the NRC's four emergency classifications.

Electricity traders guessed the unit could be down for about a week.

Meanwhile, Unit 2 at the Salem nuclear power plant was not impacted and continued to remain at full power. Read More